A Little Homestead Humor

 In light of the current nationwide egg shortage, I thought I'd share a picture of a trivet I have (my kitchen is chicken themed--not intentionally, it just evolved that way over the course of many years). 

At the time I bought it, I happened to stumble across it. Since it was 50% off, and I'd been thinking how I needed a trivet (or to make some large potholders to replace the ones I have that have worn thin), and it goes with my kitchen, I put it in my cart.  Because all those factors added together seemed to mean it was made for me.

Now it adds a bit of humor to my day.  I do get by with a little help from my hens. They've laid just enough over the winter months that I haven't needed to buy eggs from the store.  And now that there's more hours of daylight, more hens are coming into lay. Which means soon I will have enough eggs to offer them for sale--there's a long line of customers waiting for me to open up for business again.

I get by with a little help from my hens.

A Tale of Two Kettles

 Once upon a time, (1991), I moved out of my parents' home and went 500 miles away with DH, where we set up our own home.  I had a little stuff, he had even less stuff, and over the course of the first six months, we slowly accumulated some basics.  One of which was a tea kettle.  I don't remember if it came from Target, or Pamida, but it was one of those two, and it was definitely in 1991.  I only heated water for hot chocolate and/or instant coffee in a sauce pan a few times before a kettle became top priority on the purchase list.

The kettle I bought is enamel, with a handle that swivels, and has a wooden grip.  And, being 1991, it was a light blue.  Because in 1991 most everything was either light blue, or the shade of pink known as dusty rose.

That kettle served me well.  For years, and years, and decades.  And last year I had to face the fact that with cracked enamel on the inside starting to rust, and the swivel part of the handle about to break--hopefully not when I was lifting a boiling kettle of water from the stove--it was time to retire it.

Mistakenly, I thought with the magic of the internet, I would simply search online for one just like it, and have a new one in a few days.

Internet magic showed me that apparently I cannot get one just like it. 

I could get tons that weren't enameled.  But that's not what I wanted. 

I could get tons that had a different shape, but that's not what I wanted.  

I could get tons with a one-piece handle design that was integrated into the pot portion of the kettle.  But that's not what I wanted.  

I could get even more with a little metal cover on the end of the spout, to protect you from splashes while pouring.  But that's not what I wanted.

I wanted a brand new in 2022 tea kettle that looked and performed just like my 1991 tea kettle.  It didn't have to be light blue.  But it did have to be everything else my tried and true 31 year old kettle was.  I mean, that kettle lasted me from age 19 (about to turn 20) to past my 50th birthday.  My next kettle conceivably should last me the rest of my life, or at least the rest of my life that I'll most likely be able to live on my own boiling my own water.  It needed to be a kettle I liked, not just any old kettle.  Kettle shopping was not proving to be fun, and I certainly don't want to have to do it ever again.  I needed a good, durable kettle of the right size, shape, and design.

After two months of off and on searching, and tons of filtering during those searches, I finally found a tea kettle that, while not the same in all aspects other than color, was at least close enough for me to consider buying it. So I did.

DH hates it based on the floral design.  But his opinion doesn't count for much since he never used the old tea kettle anyway.  Not after getting a coffee maker in 1992. . .   I'll just keep this one out of sight in the cabinet next to the stovetop when it's not in use.  He doesn't have to look at it. 😁

As for my opinion on it now that I've had months and months to use it; well, it's okay.  It will do.  The knob on the lid doesn't stay cool like the wooden knob on the lid of my old one did.  And the ceramic grip on the handle heats up way more than the wooden grip on the old one, so much so that I have to use a hot pad between me and the handle grip.  But other than that it performs just as well as the old one, and I like the shape.  And I'd rather not search for a different one.

So now we'll see if this one lasts 31 years. . . 

Clue--This Little Place Here Edition

When my family (hubby, sons, daughters and myself) is together, strange things sometimes occur  or get talked about.  We're really good at dissecting the most random subjects.

One example is the day we happened to be talking about the game Clue--which was a favorite to play when my kids were growing. Somehow, we ended up brainstorming our own version of Clue, using the original six members of our household, their interests and hobbies.

What we came up with was:

Mom (Me), in the horse barn, with the manure fork.

Dad (DH), in the woods, with the chainsaw.

DS1, in the garage, with the impact wrench.

DS2, in his bedroom, with a calculus book.

DD1, in the backyard, with a softball bat.

DD2, in the study, with an ink pen.

That was many years ago, but the stereotypes still mostly hold true.  I'm still likely found in the horse barn.  DH still enjoys taking the chainsaw to the woods.  DS1 spends a lot of his spare time working on cars, both his own and those belonging to friends. 

The other kids, well, careers and marriage and parenthood, have changed the locale a bit.  Our clue game might need more than a mansion of rooms and the immediate outdoor area.

DS2 isn't in his room doing calculus these days; maybe he's in the study with his laptop. Or on the road with a vehicle in development.  If he's not working at home, he's hands on developing and installing engine calibration software into vehicles.

DD1, I don't think, has touched a softball bat in several years.  If any, she's wielding a whiffle ball bat showing Faline how to play tee ball.  I'd say she's either in the (kindergarten) classroom with the finger paints, or in the kitchen with the air fryer.

And DD2, not so much in the study writing stories anymore.  No, she's either in the STEAM classroom with the deer skeleton, or she's at the animal rehab with the disgruntled falcon.

Let's include all the rest of the family: daughters- and son-in-law (and official significant other), and the grandkids too, just for fun.

K2 in the craft room with the Cricut.

K3 on the trampoline with a snack.

Toad in the backyard with the four wheeler.

Rascal in the living room with the toy cars.

Surprise in the hall with the wallpaper steamer.

Honorary Son in the IT room with a broken i-pad, or in the music room with the electric bass guitar.

Faline in the family room with the play kitchen knife.

Buck in the crib with a swaddle.

Brad at the party with the charcuterie board.

How about your family?  If you made a clue game based around them, where would they be and what would be their weapon of choice?

Asparagus

 Once upon a time, probably about 18 years ago, I planted some asparagus crowns in my garden.  With great expectations of years and years of future crops, and jars of pickled asparagus for DH.

Asparagus takes a little bit to get established, and you have to be careful not to harvest too much too soon.  So the first few years we rejoiced in our meager harvest and ate fresh asparagus a few times each Spring, but never canned any.

Well, as the years went by, instead of getting more abundant, my asparagus patch seemed to be dwindling.  So much so that probably a dozen years ago I purchased and planted more crowns in a few new rows alongside the original patch.  Those crowns never did much.  Out of the dozen that I planted, I think I may have had five measly sickly looking sprouts.  Which I diligently left alone to feed the crowns so that they'd send up more and thicker spears the next year.

Until 2022, when I decided enough was enough, and I was done with that failed asparagus patch.  I dug up and transferred into a new row in a different part of the garden the few fruitful crowns that existed.  Then I had DH till up the old asparagus bed.

Meanwhile, I had noticed in 2021 a few spots around this little place here where rogue asparagus has popped up and was growing.  Asparagus apparently spread by the birds, from the seedheads that my few original asparagus plants produced each Fall when I let the spears grow into ferns to feed the crowns.  Asparagus gone feral, now growing on the lawn side of the rock wall (at least 20 yards from the asparagus bed), and in a spruce tree on the edge of the lawn, and beside the base of a maple tree out by the orchard, and at the base of another maple tree close to the house. . . 

Those I also dug up (after harvesting the spears), and transplanted the crowns this past Spring into the new asparagus row.

Feral asparagus from the spruce tree!

All the transplanted crowns grew in their new location, sending up new wispy spears over the summer.  Fingers crossed they like the new spot and I'll have lots of asparagus for eating as well as pickling.

Not only did the transplanted crowns grow, but in the old asparagus bed, where DH tilled, dozens of new baby spears sprouted.  They sprouted, and I hand dug to their base and found the crown they'd come from.  Then I transplanted that crown to the new row.  And another row.  And another row.  Throughout the Summer and into the early Fall. Every time I thought I had surely gotten every viable crown, more sprouts would appear in the old asparagus bed.  What had started the year as six known productive crowns turned into THREE new rows of asparagus, probably easily three dozen crowns.

I'm really curious as to see, in May when asparagus tends to emerge here, how many plants I have.  

Not Much Horsing Around (January)

 As the title implies, I haven't been riding Camaro much in the past month.  Too many things going on with holidays (ironically, DH said in November that he didn't want to be the 'Christmas present clearinghouse', but yet that's what our family made us into anyway. . .), and my back being hurt, and then to top it all off, I got sick last week.

So Camaro got to slack off for a few weeks.  Which I'm pretty sure he saw as me neglecting him (in his nice toasty turnout blanket, and a new slow feed hay bag hung in his stall so he doesn't gobble his dinner hay too fast and then stand around bored half the night, and a new trace mineral block in his feed tub to encourage him to drink the right amount of water despite the crazy weather) because on the days I have been to the barn and gave him attention/exercise he acted like he'd thought surely I fell off the face of the earth and he'd never see me again.  What a ham.  I guess he does appreciate me.  Or maybe it's that post workout sugar cube and peppermint he was missing.

Our rides have been low-key.  Long warmups in walk, with lots of circles and changes of direction and bending lines.  At trot we haven't been doing any long spans of trotting, more like a lap or two around the arena after our 10 minutes or so of walking warmup, and after that short spurts of trot interspersed with walk or maybe some trot/halt/trot transitions.  No cantering under saddle lately, and not even on the longe in the past two weeks.

practicing our working walk;

love that reach of the hind leg

It's been weird weather; mid-December went from cold to super warm (like upper 60s) to frigid blizzard and high temps in the teens in the span of 36 hours.  Then the next week we had another warm up, and a cool down closer to normal temps.  And up, and down. Snow, mud, then bare frozen ground, currently thawing a bit and rain making a mess.

On the warm days, it's been super humid, and I don't want to work Camaro so hard that he ends up sweaty, which he tends to do if we trot much or canter.  He takes quite awhile to dry when that happens, and he has no patience for standing in his stall in a cooler until dry.  He yells and pretty much stays just active enough to perpetuate the damp sweat. I've toyed with the idea of clipping him in some fashion, which I've never actually needed to do with my prior horses, but I don't want him to end up cold even under his blankets if I clip him.  Which means on the days I have been able to ride, I'm making up the working plan on the fly depending on the temperature and humidity.

Meanwhile, he's been shedding long hairs for a couple of weeks all ready.  Enough at once that they are coating the cuffs of my gloves when I groom him and leaving a noticeable pile of hair on the cement floor of the barn aisle. Not sure if that's a sign that this winter is going to continue to be mild and Spring get here early, or if his brain decided to get rid of some that extra insulation that is making him wet when we work.

Enjoying the patch of unseasonably green grass.

Some Frugal Things

 With prices jumping mightily in the past year, and some kitchen staples really skyrocketing lately, I thought it might be a good time for me to talk about some frugal things that I do.  Some of which I've been doing for so long that I don't even think about them as being frugal.

If you look at the sidebar to the right, there's a whole category for frugal things, but to save you sifting through almost 12 years of content, I'll highlight and direct link to a few.

I typically make my own bread.  Here's a post from way back when the blog was  new and I talked about how I make my bread.

Also make my own laundry soap.  That's been going on for over 20 years, and with the newer washing machines, I use even less soap per load than when I wrote the post.  (Just skimmed that post and apparently my photos disappeared.  Sorry for the lack of illustrations, but the info is all there.)

We don't go through nearly as much paper towels and other people do, apparently. I'd always bought them in large 8 packs, and didn't really keep track of how long they were lasting.  But I never ran out, at least not until when DS1 & family lived with us from late 2014 to early 2016.  When they moved out it became very apparent that DH and I don't use paper towels much; suddenly a roll of paper towel lasted over a month instead of barely (and sometimes not even) a week.  I wipe up lots of spills with washable towels or rags.  And the rags are either old t-shirts, cut up, or old bath- or hand towels that have gotten thin or ripped or otherwise retired from use in the bathroom.  If I'm wiping up really gross stuff, there's no guilt in tossing the rag into the trash; there's always more rags as things get worn out.  And when they're not gross, all rags just go into the laundry to be cleaned for reuse.

We do use tissues, although I prefer, if I'm having a really runny nose like from allergies or working outside, to just tuck a handkerchief into my pocket and use that.  It can hold a lot more than a tissue, is quickly made from fabric (some I all ready had), and is easy to toss into the washing machine with other laundry.  Here's a couple posts I did years ago on making handkerchiefs.

As far as cleaning solutions go, white vinegar is my cleans everything.  There's a spray bottle kept under the kitchen sink that is 50% white vinegar and 50% water.  I use it for not only counters and walls and doorknobs and switches, but also for windows and mirrors.  

With the cost of eggs being astronomical at the moment (and it's winter, so my hens are barely laying), I'm digging out my egg subsititute options to use in baking in order to save the actual eggs for breakfast omelets.

The vast majority of our meals are cooked from scratch.  Check out the recipes category for recipes that mostly do not use 'a box of this and a jar of that'.  Speaking of jars of that, I so rarely buy anything in a jar that I recently came to the end of my stash of commercial jars I'd saved for using as grease jars and had to beg an empty jar for DD1.  

We have a small tv antenna mounted in the attic and watch what comes over the air 'for free'.  We don't subscribe to cable, satellite or streaming tv services.  Occasionally I will borrow a dvd from the library if there is a movie we are interested in watching.

Speaking of library, I don't often buy books.  The vast majority of books I read are borrowed from the library at no cost (free, if you overlook the fact that funding the library comes out of our property taxes).  

That's just a quick off the top of my head list.  Like I mentioned earlier, check out the sidebar for more posts under the topic of frugal.  There are lots of things I forget not everyone does, just because they've been my lifestyle forever.

Sewing and Stitching So Far in January

 There's been a sewing related chore on my to-do list for a while.  One that I am perfectly capable of doing, but ran into an issue on: took a while to find the right supplies. Once I found what I needed (I thought--more on that in a minute), then I needed to find the time. And the motivation.

What was the chore?

Replacing the zipper in DH's winter coat.  It died late last winter.  It zips, but then separates from the bottom up.  Not a huge deal, or so I thought, as I've replaced zippers in coats before.  However, a zipper for this particular coat was harder to find than I thought it would be.  Seems to be a not very widely available length of zipper.  And when I did manage to find a place or two that carried the right length, I couldn't find any in navy blue, just black or brown or white.  Since the coat is blue, none of those colors really would look right, as if the coat had always had that zipper.  

So it took several months of off and on searching, including searching online, before I found a blue zipper in the correct length.  I had been trying to find a zipper with metal teeth, as the original zipper had, but finally had to give it up and buy one with plastic teeth.  Not my favorite for outerwear, but oh well. That coat needed to get fixed.

Ordered the blue zipper online, and when it finally arrived, I was over my head busy with life (work, household chores, emergency grandkid care, holidays and holiday prep and more holidays). Which meant I didn't actually sit down to work on the removing of the old zipper and installation of the new zipper until after the first of the year.

Replacing zippers isn't hard, but it's tedious.  Especially in a winter coat. There's layers to unstitch, and keep straight, and restitch without bunching, and make sure nothing is too close or too far from the teeth of the zipper but don't hit the teeth with the needle  (great way to break a needle,and possibly a tooth on the zipper), all hopefully without having noticeably wavy stitching lines on the outside of the coat for everyone to see.  Honestly, I tried to talk DH into just buying a new (and slightly larger) winter coat, but that was a no go.

But, I managed to get the task accomplished.  And it doesn't look too bad.  If you don't look too closely at it (which nobody should be that close when it's being worn), you can't tell that I didn't get all the layers quite aligned the whole length of the zipper on one side.  But I'm pretty satisfied.

At least, I was until DH went to wear it and informed me that I put the zipper on the wrong way.  I insisted that I didn't, because the zipper pull is facing out, like it's supposed to, and if I turned the zipper the other way you wouldn't be able to grip the zipper pull because it would be facing to the inside.

Apparently, the replacement zipper is a women's zipper: it seats and zips on the opposite side of all DH's other coats and jackets.  Which is too dang bad, because nowhere in my vast searching for this length and color of zipper did any descriptions give a gender or note which 'hand' this zipper is.  So he's just going to have to learn to zip his coat 'backwards' like a girl!

On a happier note, I've started working on a baby quilt I'd intended to have made and delivered before the baby was due.  The baby came early, so that didn't happen.  But the recipient --and his mama, a cousin on DH's side who is quite close to DD1--has no idea there's a quilt intended for them, so not a huge deal to be later than I'd hoped.

I just started working on the paper pieced blocks over the weekend.  I'm making crossed canoes blocks in blue and green batiks (the fabric makes me think of water) and going to alternate them with solid blocks in a sandy or light brown fabric.  There's a little bit of symbolism in this design, as the baby's mama was basically raised by her grandpa, who was quite the canoer and passed that on to several members of the family, and that grandpa passed away suddenly last year.  The baby was given that grandpa's name as his middle name.  Therefore, a water and canoe themed quilt.

The Uh-Oh We Discovered in June

 This summer, we had several big projects planned.  And then we found one we hadn't planned.  Uh-oh.

One day I noticed that the siding on the walkout wall of the basement didn't look right.  It looked, well, warped, but I knew that there hadn't been any exposure to high heat that would have warped the vinyl.  I mentioned it to DH, and he went down to take a look.

He agreed that it did, indeed look weird.  And so he took a piece off to investigate.  Turned out there was absolutely nothing wrong with the siding.  The problem was with the wall behind it! Big uh-oh!

See that dark staining on the OSB?  That's not supposed to be there.  Even worse, do you see the area where the OSB is missing?  The insulation underneath isn't supposed to be visible.  Uh-oh.

DH ended up taking off all the siding and the housewrap from this wall. This 30' long wall with two doors in it. There was a lot of damage. FUC... Uh-oh.

It appears that water had been seeping under the siding at about where the deck on the first floor attaches to the back of the house.  For years.  It had gotten not just under the siding, but under the house wrap and slowly rotted out the OSB.  A rather large colony of ants had moved in and were loving that environment of soft wood.  And, once we took off the rotten OSB, we could see that our icynene insulation--touted as rodent and insect proof (or repellent or something) back when we built the house in 2002-2003 -- had indeed been eaten into by rodents or insects or something.  Uh-oh.

Those other projects we'd had on the docket, well, they were going to have to wait.  And some of the funds we'd earmarked for them were going to have to go to fixing this.

We contacted our home-owners insurance, on the off chance that repairs would be covered.  Nope.  Not caused by a catastrophic event, such as a storm, so therefore we were on our own to deal with it.  Uh-oh.

DH had a few local builders come out to take a look at the extent of the damage and give him quotes on repairs.  Thankfully they all agreed that the stud wall and first-floor floor trusses (holding up the house, basically) were structurally unharmed.  So all that really needed to be done was get rid of the dang ants, remove all the OSB, put on new OSB, put on some sticky waterproofing membrane above and below the ledger board attaching the deck to the house, put on new housewrap, and reinstall the siding DH had carefully removed.

Well heck, we could do that ourselves.  We had, afterall, designed and built the house and done the vast majority of the labor ourselves back then.  So, over the course of several evenings and a weekend or two (with a week's pre-scheduled and not delayable vacation in between), we did the demo.  And the rebuild.

It really wasn't difficult, just a little acrobatic and contorting in places.

You can't imagine how much satisfaction we felt when this picture was taken.  Good as new!

All The Homemade Gifts

 In place of a knitting update this month, because I've done very little knitting since finishing a few knitted Christmas things, I'm going to share pictures of what I handmade for gifts.

This beaded counted cross stitch Santa has been done since?? late summer?? except for the cutting out of design and felt, then gluing the two together with a braided thread hanger sandwiched in between.  Technically not a gift, I had made this one for me.

This Santa, Antarctic Penguin Santa, I made for DD1 this fall.  It too just needed to be trimmed, a felt backing cut to size and to have them glued together with a hanging loop.

Then there were the sewn gifts.

An apron for Faline, who likes to pretend to cook, help her parents cook, and had received a very nice play kitchen as a birthday present from her great-grandparents on Honorary Son's side.  She really liked it, and insisted on wearing it for the rest of our Christmas gathering.

I also made her a flannel nightgown and a matching one to fit her favorite baby doll.  She was excited about those too.

She wasn't the only one to receive a handmade apron; I made this one for DH (who has developed the ability to splatter grease on himself every time he cooks--which isn't all that often--and has ruined more than a few new shirts that way in the past year.)  The fabric has craft beer like bottle caps on it.

All of the sewing used patterns that I've had for years.  The apron ones have been used many times, beginning way back in 2000.  Come to think of it, the nightgown and doll nightgown patterns are probably also from around the same time period.  They're now on their second generation; I sewed for my daughters when they were little and now for my granddaughters.

I also knit a sweater for Buck, using the Viola and Sebastian pattern I downloaded in 2020.  I did take a picture of it, while it was blocking, but my phone seems to have eaten that picture. 😠  Also not pictured are the Chex Mix, Cinnamon sugar pretzels, toffee, peanut brittle and three kinds of Christmas cookies I made as various gifts.

Okay, I guess I do have a little bit of a knitting update to tack onto this post.

It was really hard to not be working on anything crafty after Christmas, and I only lasted until the 28th before I was digging through my yarn stash for something to make a quick pair of ankle socks with.  These will be for me; pattern is Solor socks, I'm adapting it for ankle height socks.  I cast on the evening of the 29th. They are barely started here, about nine rows of a 15 row cuff completed. 

The yarn is a small (50g) skein of Knit Picks Imagination fingering in the colorway Loch Ness.  I have no idea how old the yarn is, it was given to my mom by someone who was destashing and realized they didn't use that weight of yarn.  My mom doesn't use fingering either, but accepted it to pass on to me, who happens to use fingering more often than any other weight! 

In retrospect, 2022 seems to be the year of destashed yarn filling my stash; both my mom and my mother-in-law took on fingering weight yarn for the sole purpose of giving it to me.  Somewhere around two dozen skeins of yarn came my way, most of which is fingering but there's also at least eight skeins of some lovely lace weight in two colorways.

Might was well finish out with what I've read since December's knitting and reading update.

• Blue Jeans and Coffee Beans by Joanne DeMaio.  The first in a long series, I thought I'd give it a try.  Hard to follow in the beginning, and not the most captivating to my interest, but I did read the whole book and might read the next one to see if there's improvement.
• The Run to Gitche Gumee by Robert F. Jones.  I started and stopped this one a few times (lots going on IRL, couldn't focus on the story to follow it) before diving in and really being surprised to love it overall.  This is more of a guy's book, with a lot of hunting, fishing, canoeing, camping and high adventure risk taking, but it was that exact stuff (and the location) that I was familiar enough with that it sucked me in and kept me on the edge of my seat.  The ending is kind of abrupt, but fits the storyline and writing well.
• Begin and Begin Again by Denny Emerson is what I am currently reading.  It's not a how-to horse kind of book, more of an encouraging meet-you-where-you-are-and-give-you-a-pep-talk mixed with short anecdotes and biographical blurbs of other riders.  

The Great Canna Lily Experiment

 In which I attempt the "simple" (that was extremely difficult), give up, and inadvertently succeed.

It all began something like this:

The barn where Camaro lives, and I work 5 mornings a week, has some canna lilies replanted annually in a small flower bed near the front door of the barn.  In the Fall, those canna lilies drop little black seeds, almost the size of small marbles, on the ground.  Some end up in the barn aisle, where I typically sweep them up and toss them in a manure bucket to go out with the rest of the organic matter from the barn.

One day, in 2021, I was sweeping those seeds along with the hay chaff, sawdust, and other detritus that accumulates in a barn aisle daily, and I wondered if I might be able to take some of those seeds home and grow my own canna lilies for this little place here. So I stuck about a dozen and a half of those little black balls into my pocket and took them home with the intent to read up on canna lily propagation over the winter, and start them indoors when I sowed my tomato and pepper seeds for the 2022 season.

I did read up, and found that apparently propagating cannas from seed is 'possible'. Some sites even said it was "simple".  They had to be scarified though, which I haven't had a lot of success at with other seeds requiring this treatment.

 Not letting that stop me, I planted them anyway, one seed per little pot filled with seed starting soil.  I slid the tray of pots into a giant ziploc baggie (I have several of these really big baggies and use them year after year to make pseudo greenhouses when starting seed trays).  And then I watched and waited.

Supposedly it can take up to two weeks for canna lily seeds to germinate after you scratch them, soak them in water for a day or two and then plant them.  Well, I must not have scratched those seeds deeply enough--it wasn't easy to grip them.  Because after I scratched, soaked, and planted, I waited.  And waited.  And waited.  

After literally a month with no signs of a sprout, I removed their tray from the baggie, and set it out in the garage with the other trays (which were now empty because I'd transplanted their 3-4" seedlings into slightly larger pots).  

I left it there for a good month--OK, I forgot about it--until I went to clean the other trays and return them to the garden shed until mid-winter when I'll start my 2023 tomatoes and peppers.  It was while moving the trays that I noticed a few pale green sprouts coming out of the canna lily pots.  The tray I'd abandoned, left for dead, written off as a failed experiment. There was actually something (finally) growing in there!

So I put the tray outside, where it would get more sunlight.

And proceeded, in the busyness of Spring, to again forget about it.  I didn't water it, I didn't check to see if the nighttime temperatures were warm enough, I didn't do nothing with it.

Those canna sprouts grew anyway.  Not only did the few I'd first noticed in the garage grow, but almost every one of the seeds I'd originally planted, sent up a shoot.

With a little more neglect, they continued to grow.  No thanks to me, all kudos to Mother Nature.

Eventually, in mid June after the rest of the garden was planted, I transplanted my little canna plants into a row in the garden.  I did take care of them there, keeping them watered and weeded, at least I did until tomatoes started coming on hot and heavy in August and I got busy canning.  

But you know what?  Those dang canna lilies kept living. Not only did they live, despite the weeds that grew up around them, but they actually flowered in September!

A few of the plants did die over the course of the summer.  And a few grew but didn't flower.

In late October, I dug up the plants, cut off the stalks, let the bulbs dry, and stuck them in the basement for storage over the winter.  When Spring comes, I'll separate the bulbs--some plants had produced as many as 5 or 6 bulbs!--and plant them outside after the soil is warm and the danger of frost is over.

It was an interesting experiment and I'm glad I had the idea to bring home seeds and see if they would grow.  Because now I have probably about two dozen canna bulbs that cost me nothing but a few cents in seed starter soil.  And, unless I manage to kill them off, these bulbs will grow into plants and produce even more bulbs for years to come.

I can't wait to see how well they will grow (and flower) when I actually take proper care of them!